LA is fun?

the answer: yes. After a very early flight out of JFK on monday morning, MBD arrived on the ground in Los Angeles at about 10:45 pacific standard time. For me, this tour has felt like a vacation ever since the moment i stepped out of baggage claim at LAX, breathing in the warm, polluted, LA air. instead of our usual 15-20 items of luggage, including a variety of instruments and personal effects, our final tally came to about to a manageable 12 items. Not too shabby, even with the new checked baggage taxes American Airlines have been so kind to require.

LA always sort of feels like home to me. It's something about the sunlight, the smell, and the constant motion of the city flying by outside your car window. After renting the van and the subsequent patch of 405 traffic, we arrived not at another bland, sterile hotel, but instead at the place i grew up. Waiting for us there was my mom, armed to the teeth with chocolate chip cookies, blueberry scones, and of course, love (aaw). My mother is at her happiest when she's entertaining guests. She whips around the house, preparing sandwiches, pouring coffee, and making small talk with anyone looking to chat. Sometimes it's possible for certain guests to overstay their welcome, but we could only stay about 4 days, 2 of them being show days.

After our little welcome session, mom left for a lecture at UCLA, and we enjoyed a full-on veg session. We all joked that this didn't really "feel like tour", on account of all the free food, comfortable furniture, and complete lack of stress we were enjoying. I had lunch with my good friend Rishi at our old haunt, Sak's, eating some deliciously awful teriyaki. Everything about the afternoon felt familiar in a way. The two of us chatted about our lives - my new engagement, his thriving family business, and how on earth we all made it out of our teenage years alive. This conversation was a theme of my stay in LA. It felt like every old friend i saw realized (as i did) that our lives as adults are fully underway.

Shara and James did some napping, Brian met up with his best buddy Keith, and I drove around a bit. Something about driving around in LA makes a person feel like time stands still. You sit there, shielded by a canopy of plastic and glass and metal, wondering all the while how on earth the whole system functions. There are so many cars, so many people, so many different lives, and all of them stopping and going all over town at the same time. It's really a miracle that anyone comes out of it alive everyday. With new york, this same cycle happens. The only difference is that the people with two feet on concrete outnumber the cars about 10 to 1 at any one point of the day (or something like that?)

I got home at around 7 to enjoy a nice home-cooked meal with Shara, James, and my mom. I excused myself after stuffing my face to catch the end of the celts-pistons game at my good friend max's house. Max lives in NYC nowadays, as does almost every single member of my maniacal cadre from high school. A lot of these friends, including my buds Sam b, Adam k, David r, Scott K, and countless others, left LA after returning home after college. They all seemed to reason that LA seemed to familiar, too "easy" after college; they came to NYC to "suffer a little", as Sam puts it. Surprisingly, those of my friends who have not yet spent time in the big apple, have echoed the same sentiments about the LA lifestyle. Ironically, I visit LA from NYC and it just makes me want to come home. NYC can beat you down and make you feel insignificant, but it seems that a fault of living in LA is that it's just too easy to be comfortable with the everyday. I hung at Max's into the night, enjoying laughs and some memories with good friends. Tuesday would be a show day.

The hotel cafe is located on cahuenga blvd in the heart of old-school hollywood. It's stage is small, quaint, and not too high off the ground, with a capacity of about 120. The theme is dark, cavernous, and extremely mellow, with candles on tables and bars in the front and back. After a wicked opening set by PEDESTRIAN, we took the stage at about 9:15. Because of the size of the stage, the lack of a proper sound check, and a boatfull of new material, our setup was a little tense. Beads of sweat ran down from Brian's sweet hairdo and dampened his dress shirt; my hands shook as I set up my pedals; Shara fussed with her tone. The new variable in the trio lineup is a roland SPDS drum pad/sampler, which provides a good amount of ambient sound and overall texture to the new stuff. For Brian, however, who already has by far the most intensive pre-show setup ritual, it is booth a pleasure and a source of anxiey at this point.

For all the frenetic worry of this first show, we got through all the songs without anyone getting hurt. I think we even did a pretty darn good job. In attendance were about 15 of my friends, some of them shouting out encouragements such, "YEAH NAAATE!!" or "SIIIITOOOOOO". After the show, I had some drinks with max braverman, another bud from the days of yore (sp?)

The next night at the hotel cafe was a much more comfortable show, and Zack from Pedestrian actually came up and played some piano with us on one of the "bring me the workhorse" singles, "golden star".

Afterwards, i met up with my friend sam feld and her new man at a bar in silverlake, where i got to witness firsthand the LA equivalent of the "hipster" style. I saw a lot of torn t-shirts, tight jeans, non-matching neon outerwear, and ugly 80's sneakers. hmmmmm..... Sam is one of my LA friends who can successfully convince me that LA has fun, happening, and worthwhile options for an evening drink.

Thursday was a day of adventure. I woke up and tried to watch the previous night's laker game, only to find out that the 4th quarter did not record. For those of you who didn't watch/didn't care, it was apparently an AMAZING 4th quarter. Kobe really made it happen. After drying my tears, I embarked on a 3 hour journey to Alhambra in order to eat the famous "TRIUMPHAL PALACE" dim sum. Flanked by friends Sam Shpall, and Ayall "Frog" Haggai, we ate the caloric equivalent of a thanksgiving meal. We arrived just in time, too, getting the last orders of the day before the restaurant closed. Frog is a passionate, passionate eater, and provided an amazing soundtrack to the meal. "WE JUST DOOMINATED THAT MEAL. DOMINATED." I've never dominated food before, but they say there's a first time for everything.

The evening's activities included a visit to my FAVORITE place in the world, "the apple pan", and a vigorous, if not hotly contested poker match. In the end, it came down to a heads up battle between myself and Max B(raverman). I came out on top, winning with a pair of queens on the river to beat max's 10s. I turned my 10 dollars of leftover per diem into 100, and i went home happy!

As I finish this blog, i'm in the dressing room of the "independent" in San Fransisco. I'm a couple days behind, but will be posting more tomorrow. thanks for reading. nate